


Shadow's Son

by urami



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bad Parenting, Boggarts, Child Abuse, Gen, Growing Up, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8804437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urami/pseuds/urami
Summary: When Mary Lou Barebone told Credence that his biological mother was a "wicked, unnatural woman," there was a little more truth to that than she thought; although, she probably didn't realize in exactly what way she was right. 
Credence always thought he was a freak, his adoptive mother made sure he knew her feelings on the matter. But he never would have guessed that he was anything but completely human. 
Written for a kink meme prompt.





	1. October 30, 1901

**Author's Note:**

> It's almost 11:00 on a Friday night, I worked a twelve-hour shift trying to get my shop ready for corporate visit next week, I've got relatives crashing in my computer room, I haven't slept in about 36 hours, and I'm writing crazy shit. AYYY LMAO. 
> 
> ...Anyway. This is a fill for [this prompt](http://fantasticbeasts-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/459.html?thread=146123#cmt146123) on the kink meme. It's probably going to be a bit long, so please bear with me. Also, I don't know Credence's exact age, but I'm going to go with him being in his twenties at the time of the movie's events.

_October 30, 1901_

Mary Lou Barebone knew there was something off about the woman the second she set eyes on her. It really only was chance that she saw the woman in the first place. She was heavily pregnant and woefully underdressed for the chilly October night. That wasn’t anything unusual; the city’s prostitutes rarely exhibited anything that could be called common decency or sense. In other circumstances, Mary Lou wouldn’t have given her a second thought at all. It was only when the woman staggered into a passerby who snapped rudely at her that Mary Lou noticed it. Just for a second, if she’d blinked she would have missed it, and it didn’t seem apparent to anyone else on the street, the pregnant woman flickered, as though she’d disappeared for just a second and came back. The man she’d bumped quickly apologized and hurried on his way.

Interested and immediately suspicious, Mary Lou watched closely as the woman continued to waddle down the street. She couldn’t shake the fundamental feeling of _wrongness_ that she got, watching the pregnant woman. Every so often, it seemed that the woman would flicker in and out of existence, and as she walked closer, Mary Lou began to make out details. The tattered dress she wore looked like it was made out of some unearthly fabric, the way it seemed to flow and cling to her amply curved stomach while still being of an almost indecent length. The way the woman sort of half-waddled, half-scuttled, as though she was a machine that had learned to walk by watching crabs and penguins was unnerving. And once Mary Lou was able to make out her features, she couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever she was looking at was _not_ one of the Lord’s creatures.

Chalk-white skin that looked more like it was devoid of any pigment at all than any natural skin, sunken, pitch black hair that hung limply to her shoulders, dull eyes that nonetheless looked like endless pits of darkness, unnaturally sharp teeth bared in a pained grimace, all added up to create a facsimile of a human woman that awoke a primal terror in Mary Lou Barebone’s soul.

“Please,” the creature begged in a broken voice. “Please, I’m… it’s coming. My baby. Help me.” Starting, Mary Lou realized that she’d been watching this… _thing_ … for a while, and it obviously had noticed that she’d been watching it. She’d been so horrifyingly fascinated by it that she hadn’t even noticed it stopping at her church’s door. “Please… you have to help me,” the creature reiterated. “My baby will die, please help me.”

Against all her better judgment (had the creature placed some sort of compulsion on her?), Mary Lou allowed the thing into her church. The creature took a few steps into the building, gave a horrific, static-like screech, then collapsed onto the ground. Horrified, Mary Lou could only watch as the strange garment she wore twisted and melted, revealing the woman’s lower half.

Although the idea of looking at a monster’s birthing canal did not appeal to Mary Lou, she knew she really didn’t have much of a choice. If this woman, or whatever it was, died giving birth and took the baby, or whatever _it_ was with it, Mary Lou was going to have to deal with the corpses of what resembled a woman and a baby. And she wasn’t stupid- she knew that people in the city viewed her ministry with suspicion, and believed she was running a cult. Having a dead mother and child on her property would bring the exact kind of attention that she wanted to avoid. If that meant playing midwife to a monster, then so be it. And if the woman died, but the baby survived, then maybe she would have a chance to raise the child in the ways of the Lord. Perhaps even a demon’s child could still be saved, if she got to it early enough.

Gritting her teeth, Mary Lou got on her hands and knees and peered up between the woman’s legs. A small, dark head was just barely visible, beginning to peek through the creature’s opening- the labor was beginning to enter its last stage. The baby was coming.

“You need to push,” she instructed the woman, who grunted, then let out another one of those horrible, unearthly screams. A bit more of the baby’s head was visible, and Mary Lou repeated her instructions. The woman groaned again, screamed a bit more, gave another push. Even more of the baby’s dark, fuzzy little head was visible.

Ultimately, it took another half an hour for the baby to be completely born. Mary Lou was somewhat surprised to see that it looked like a normal, healthy newborn boy. Unlike his mother, he at least appeared to be a normal human, even if he did have a bit more hair than most newborns she’d ever seen. She cut the umbilical cord and wrapped the little boy in her shawl. Oddly enough, the baby didn’t scream and cry the way most newborns did. He made a sort of squeaking sound, a little gurgle, and almost immediately fell asleep. Mary Lou could feel the baby’s tiny lungs inhaling and exhaling in her arms.

“You have a son,” Mary Lou said, hesitant. She didn’t want to hand the little bundle over to the thing lying and bleeding on the floor of her church.

Gasping, the woman laughed. “A son. I hope he looks like his father,” she panted once she was done.

Mary Lou looked at her, and the woman looked back at Mary Lou for a moment, before the woman screamed one final time, her body fading in and out visibly. Laughing weakly, the woman only managed to say, “Look after him,” before she exploded into a few wisps of dark smoke, leaving nothing behind other than the sweetly snoozing baby and a shell-shocked preacher behind.


	2. April 9, 1902

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fought me every single time I tried to write. It's hard to write Mary Lou, she creeps me out. 
> 
> Also, just a heads-up, there's some religious content in this chapter. It's probably completely bastardized, since my religion doesn't do casting out of demons. So if that's a concern for you, maybe skip this chapter.

She’d known from the beginning that this would happen, but it had finally dawned on Mary Lou that she couldn’t ignore the truth any longer. There was just something inherently _wrong_ with the baby boy that had been so unceremoniously and unwillingly dumped in her care almost six months prior.

For one thing, the baby, who she’d christened Credence, almost never cried. No matter if he was hungry, tired, bored, or needed a diaper change- unless the situation was very dire- the little boy rarely made more than occasional squeaky, soft barely-cries. He slept a lot in the daytime, which to be fair, Mary Lou knew was relatively common for babies, but unlike most other babies she’d seen, he stayed awake for most of the night.

That was unsettling enough, but it was what happened during those nights that truly chilled Mary Lou to the bone. Any time Mary Lou went near the small room where she’d stashed Credence’s crib after approximately 9:00 PM, she would hear the baby giggling and laughing. One night, she’d decided to go in to see what was so entertaining to the child, only to see a swirling morass of shadow taking a more-or-less corporeal form in front of the crib. A tentacle-like appendage moved out to boop Credence’s nose, which of course only served to crack up the child even more. And then, the shadow realized that it was no longer just it and the baby in the room.

It happened so fast that Mary Lou didn’t see what, exactly, was going on, but the next thing she knew she was staring down her worst nightmare.

It was a woman, dressed all in black, with a pointed hat on her head, while carrying a broomstick in her hands. Mary Lou hissed out a frightened breath, backing up. A witch! She’d _known_ there was something wrong with the baby! What kind of child didn’t have a primal terror of the unholy acts that she knew the servants of the devil committed? Was this… _thing_ here to steal the baby and sacrifice him in some unholy ritual?

Gathering her strength, Mary Lou stepped forward. “G-get away from him,” she stammered out. “Begone, creature!”

The witch cocked her head, regarding Mary Lou with an unsettling gaze. “You would deny the boy the chance to spend time with one of his own kind?” she asked.

“In the name of Jesus Christ, I call for the blood of the Lamb to cover me and all in this house! I cast thee out in the name of the Lord! Deliver us from evil!” was all Mary Lou said in response. The witch rolled her eyes.

“Pitiful human girl, you have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“In Jesus’ name, I cast thee out! Begone, witch!”

The witch smirked. “It’s not very effective, is it?”

“Get out!” Mary Lou practically shrieked. Credence started crying at the loud exclamation, and the witch turned her attention away from Mary Lou to turn back to the crib.

“Shh, shhh, little one, it’s alright,” she murmured. “Do not fear the human woman, you are far more powerful than she, even in this tiny form.  Shh, shhh.” She reached a hand down into the crib to softly stroke the baby’s cheek.

“DO NOT TOUCH HIM! IN THE NAME OF JESUS, I CAST THEE OUT!” Mary Lou bellowed. Of course, that only made Credence cry harder. The witch sighed. 

“Very well. But know this, human. You will not be able to prevent more of our kind from checking up on little Credence here. Your prayers, while clearly believed, are ineffective against our kind.” With that said, the witch shifted back into the black mass of shadow that Mary Lou had seen at first, then faded out gently.

Mary Lou collapsed on the floor, shaking. What had that meant? Credence was a witch? More witches were going to come into her church?! That was unacceptable. Completely unacceptable.

As her mind raced to come up with a plan of action to prevent witches from attacking her, and the church, she barely noticed Credence’s cries from in the crib. The child was incidental to the threat she was facing from witches. And truthfully, she could barely stand to touch him. The little freak was _giggling and smiling_ when he was around a demonic entity. What if it transferred to her if she picked him up?

Let him cry himself to sleep. He’d survive it.

But Mary Lou wasn’t sure either of them would survive if the demon, or witch, or whatever that thing had been came back.


End file.
